It's A Wonderfully Sexy Life by Hope Tarr

other man might be, he would never be Josh. No one would. There was only one Josh Thornton and the damned shame was that by now he was planted six feet underground somewhere in Boston.
    A splash struck her cheek. She looked up, expecting to see rain or snow, but the sky was clear and after a few seconds she realized what she’d felt wasn’t precipitation but her own tear. Wiping it away, she noted the absence of the moon in the canvas of black sky. Recalling the lunar notation on her wall calendar, she knew it was a new moon, that time of the month when it cycled through all the other signs of the zodiac to align with the sun. The start of the next lunar phase, it was supposed to be the optimal time for pursuing fresh starts and seeking future possibilities.
    In the past, she’d written off astrology as New-Age woo-woo, but standing on Suz’s stoop, she desperately needed to believe in something—in the possibility of happy endings and magic and make-believe; in the power of wishing. Only what she wished for wasn’t to move forward with her future but instead to retrace her steps and go back—back in time. Back one week to that magical, fateful Christmas Eve, only this time when Josh asked her to come home with him, she’d answer yes, yes, yes! Hindsight being twenty-twenty, she’d do everything possible and then some to make sure he stayed safe and alive for that Boston trial even if that meant locking him in a room and herself right along with him—especially if it meant that.
    “Ten, nine, eight, seven…” From inside the house, collective voices chanted out the countdown to a new year.
    She squeezed her eyes tightly closed. “Please, God, and Mother Mary, too, if any of you are up there listening, this wish is for Josh, and for me, too, I guess.”
    “Six, five, four…”
    “If there’s anything you can do to intervene, anything at all, please make him not be dead.”
    “Three, two, one—Happy New Year!”
    Mandy opened her eyes, an explosion of noisemakers and joyous shouts sounding off at her back. Holding her breath, she looked down at the watch on her right wrist. It was indeed midnight. The date on her digital watch had flipped forward to January 1, 2007. Forward, not backward. Had she really expected it to say 2006?
    Those beers must have hit me a lot harder than I thought.
    Not only was she on a crying jag, but she apparently was delusional, too. She’d actually had herself believing she could turn back time just by wishing, or actually, praying. Man, I had better get home and fast. She dug a Kleenex out of her purse and dabbed it beneath her eyes. Dropping the balled-up tissue inside, she snapped the bag closed and chanced one last look up at the sky.
    “Happy New Year, Josh, wherever you are.”
    She turned to go back inside and say her other goodbyes.

6
    Monday, January 1, New Year’s Day, or December 24 (Christmas Eve round two)—take your pick.
    Cases of drinker’s remorse: one but worst since morning after high school prom when woke up in lawn chaise at public pool wrapped around gross Lenny Borkowski and missing panties. (Okay, on second thought, maybe not as bad as that). Likelihood of carting around brain tumor size of Harborplace or being knocked out cold in coma like friggin’ Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court: very likely but with hot fantasy to liven up vegetative state, decide consciousness definitely overrated.
    Number of hunky potential boyfriends raised Lazarus-like from the dead: one but hallelujah and praise be!
    “‘I CAN ’ T GET NO SATISFACTION . No satisfaction…no, no, noooo…’”
    Mandy awoke to the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” blaring out of her radio alarm clock. I can’t get no satisfaction, how fitting . With eyes squeezed shut, she unfurled from the fetal position she’d curled into and reached out to shut the music off. Ah, so this was a hangover. It had been so long, senior year in high school, that she’d almost forgotten what